Hi guys, so as you know I am a Ali Edwards Story Kit subscriber and I love these kits every month. The physical products are beautiful and well-designed, and the class content is always amazing. So this month I decided to use my READ kit on a Project Life layout for Week 19. While my layout is not necessarily focused on reading (in fact, it never mentions reading!), there were a lot of elements that mentioned “the story”. Our lives are filled with stories and that felt like a great jumping off point for this layout. Have a look at my process video!

Ok, so I created the layout itself in the Project Life App, using Dropbox to bring my Ali Edwards digital elements into the layout, and also using Letterglow to add a few digital elements to the photos themselves.

Here is the completed layout, with journaling and embellishments from the READ Story Kit added:

I started on the left hand side of the page, which was mostly about two of our kids who were home sick this week. I also got a new hat and we took some fun pictures with that.

For the hat photo I simply added a speech bubble with stamped stars and a word strip.

Our knock-out roses also popped this week, but I only included the photo, no journaling for that. You will see that I used the speech bubbles throughout along with the word strips. Simple and easy!

Whenever the kids stay home, I like to take them out to lunch once they start feeling better. I used half of the journaling card below, because I really liked the “Your face tells me the whole story.” No embellishments added to this one.

I love the chipboard embellishments that come in the physical product kit, but I have found the widest chipboard banner is always a bit too wide for photos on the Project Life App. So I brought this white banner into Letterglow and placed in on the photo on a smaller scale. Then I added an actual chipboard banner on top, offset. I absolutely used pink across this layout, and in the end I am glad I did.

This journaling card looks almost like it could be divided in two, and if you wanted to it would be just lovely, but I decided to leave it as one and embellish the one side. Again just a speech bubble with word strips.

On the right hand side of the layout I began with my journaling and photo of our son being inducted into NJHS, National Honor Society. I am so proud of him – transitioning to middle school was excruciating and he was failing last year. This year we made a plan and he has worked really hard, and he has kept A/B honor roll all year. So very awesome!!!

For the photo I brought another word strip into Letterglow. I did not alter the color, but did dial down the opacity. This one is also a bit larger than the physical word strip, which is the fun part of using the digital elements!

And here is where the layout took an unexpected turn! If you watched the video then you probably got the whole idea of what happened – I went to use the silkscreen that came in the READ Story Kit, and it bonded with the photo paper! This is what that looked like when I pulled the screen up:

You can see the residue that sadly remained on the layout itself! At that point I had to just to take a lunch break and cry for a minute. And then I regrouped and figured I would just cover it up. Originally I had used the black numbers in the digital kit, but the physical ones I received were white. So I decided to use those with a pink patterned paper backing them. Here is where I was glad I had several other pink elements on the layout!

Also, our little birds that were nested behind our wreath on the front door hatched in their nest this week. We have been hearing them chirping and tapping on the door, and we have seen mama bird and papa bird watching from the tree in the front yard. Underneath I added the marketing card, trimmed down, on top of the plus sign journaling card and then I added the date. Of course, long after the video was finished I realized that is entirely the wrong date (!) so I may end up going back and changing that, but for now this is it. LOL

The last story is about my Mother’s Day gift – the kids got me some really sweet gifts this year, and one of them was this little white elephant. Before they gave it to me, they took it on an adventure and photographed the whole thing. Notice the “Stop for Elephants” sign they altered. I love it and I love them. And I love having homes for these little (big) stories!

That is all for today – I know this layout was packed with journaling and stories! This might be the most journaling I have ever put on a layout, and it makes me very happy. I hope you enjoyed seeing the READ Story Kit being used in this Project Life layout. See you back here tomorrow for a Disney layout!